The Data Layer (Model)

The WTP is equipped with vendor-neutral tools that allow
developers and administrators to manage their data through the use
of JDBC drivers. The currently supported DBMSs include Apache Derby, IBM DB2 Universal
Database, IBM Informix,
MySQL, Oracle Database,
Microsoft SQL Server,
and Sybase, but any vendor can
contribute to WTP by plugging in its own DBMS adaptor. The WTP
provides a connection wizard to create live connections to a DBMS.
With a connection established, you can view database elements such
as tables, stored procedures, and user-defined functions, and
update table content using the Database Server Explorer, shown in
Figure 2.

Figure 2. The Database Server Explorer

In addition to viewing data, you can use the SQL Scrapbook to
help you construct SQL commands to execute
against a connection. Together these tools allow you to access and
manage your data with ease.

The Business Layer (Controller) with J2EE

J2EE itself is complex and can be overwhelming to developers who
are new to it. As mentioned above, one of WTP's goals is usability.
With respect to J2EE, this means providing tools that enable you to
work more efficiently within the J2EE environment, reducing
development time and the amount of experience and knowledge needed
to create complex applications. The WTP includes wizards that guide
you through the creation of various J2EE modules. It also provides
great flexibility in how to manage these modules.

One example of the WTP's flexibility is the flexible project
layout feature of the J2EE tools. This feature allows you to bundle
multiple J2EE modules into the same project rather than being tied
to the traditional one-module-per-project mapping. Such a flexible
layout enables you to choose a project structure that best fits
your style and needs, which can greatly reduce the complexity of
managing large applications. Supporting multiple modules per
project is just the first achievement of the flexible project
layout. Future extensions to this feature will address the folder
level, allowing you to further customize your development workspace
by specifying your own names and locations for source and class
folders. To further simplify your development effort, the J2EE
tools can also generate skeleton code for commonly used J2EE
artifacts such as servlets and EJB components, and also support de
facto industry standards such as XDoclet.

The WTP also contains tools for web services, now an integral
part of J2EE. These tools allow you to easily create interoperable
web services. Interoperability is the key to the success of web
services as it allows you to make the powerful statement that your
service can be utilized by any business application running on any
platform (be it built on Java or .NET) on any operating system. The
XML schema and WSDL editors (shown in Figure 3) allow you to
visually design your web services, hiding the complex standards
that define a web service description. These editors and the
corresponding XML schema, WSDL, and WS-I validators verify that
your XML schemas and WSDL documents comply with standards and
conform to the WS-I profiles. This ensures that the web services
you produce will have the best chance of interoperability.